Just days before the iPad 3 is officially released on March 7, AppleInsider received information that shipping company DHL is ready to deal with massive shipments from Apple. Reported changes to DHL air cargo prices indicate a major Apple shipment is en route from China to the U.S. The company’s shipping costs suffered a big change, as Apple has reportedly taken up freight capacity on the shipping company’s flights from the Far East to America.

Taking up valuable space on DHL’s international flights, the massive shipping of goods has considerably raised shipping rates this week. MacRumors confirmed this information on Monday, after speaking with sources in the shipping industry. Furthermore, MacRumors indicated that shipping rates increased by 20 percent in just one week, as Apple has reserved the available capacity at “premium rates.”

Considering that Apple would likely have millions of iPads available at launch, DHL may be just one of the several couriers used to ship the new tablet. When the first iPad was released in 2010, UPS handled Saturday deliveries, although it generally does not support standard deliveries on weekends.

With rumors that Foxconn was already preparing to ship the iPad 3 to the U.S. and the shipping manifest leaked on a Chinese microblogging site showing major international charter flights from Chengdu International Airport, allegedly carrying “Apple’s latest products,” Apple seems to be preparing for near-immediate availability of its third-generation iPad.

Apple announced the iPad 2 on March 2, 2011, making it publicly available in the U.S. on March 11, or just over a week later. Should the company follow the same release pattern this year, the iPad 3 could go on sale as soon as March 16.